>Reply-To: PMDAtropos
>Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:46:02 -0400
[ Send replies to veteran@AGORA.RDROP.COM only ]
On this day when many people are commemorating the myths of D-Day and its
place in history as "the" turning point in the war against fascism, we must
not forget the patriotic lesbian and gay men who FOUGHT ANOTHER WAR, a war
against senior military officials who spewed forth propaganda against us.
Traditionally the military never officially excluded or discharged gay
people from its ranks. From the days following the Revolutionary War, the
Army and Navy had targeted the act of sodomy (which they defined as anal
and sometimes oral sex between men), not gay people, as criminal, as had
their British predecessors and the original thirteen colonies. Any soldier
or officer convicted of sodomy, whether he was gay or not, could be sent to
prison.
But in World War II a dramatic change occurred. As psychiatrists increased
their authority in the armed forces, they developed new screening
procedures to discover and disqualify homosexual men, introducing into
military policies and procedures the concept of the homosexual as a
personality type unfit for military service and combat--a concept that has
determined a military policy for 5 decades after the war. Their success in
shifting the military's attention from the sexual act to the individual had
far-reqching consequences. It forced military officials to develop an
expanding administrative apparatus for managing gay personnel that relied
on diagnosis, hospitalization, surveillance, interrogatino, discharge,
administrative appeal, and mass-indoctrination.
So here we are, 5 decades later, continuing to fight the injustices
injustices and tyrany within our own society, a society that speaks of
freedom. Freedom for whom? Now, 5 decades later, we have a new military
policy that can be termed "Hide and Seek". If offers no protections, only a
rebuttable presumption of the fact that all gay men and lesbians will
engage in behavior inappropriate to a work environment.
With 7 district court decisions in our favor, the groundwork is being laid
for the ultimate Constitutional challenge with the Supreme Court. While we
wait, we're hunted and coerced by people who are unwilling to accept the
fact that some people are different from them.
That's our D-Day legacy.
Anders Winther Defenders of LIBERTY!
Veterans for Human Rights Promoters of full and equal recognition and
Portland, Ore. protection for g/l/b active, reserve and
veteran members of the U.S. Armed Forces